"What?" she asked excitedly. "What do we want, Captain? Hush, Bob!" "An aquarium," said he. "You see, my dear--" "Why, we've got one. We've got one already, Captain!" she cried out triumphantly, clapping her hands as she interrupted him. "Aunt Polly bought one this very morning for us." "That was very good of her, more than you young torments deserve," said the Captain, with his customary chuckle. "However, now you've got an aquarium, you must have something to put in it. Something living, I mean. These dead and gone dried-up old chaps here are of no use; although I wouldn't be surprised if that starfish there could still tell the number of his mess if placed in water. I'm sure he's yet alive, my dear." "Why!" exclaimed Nellie, astonished at this, "we've had him hanging up like that for a week!" "Never mind that," replied the Captain. "Those funny, fat, seven- fingered gentlemen have a nasty habit of `shamming Abraham,' or pretending to have `kicked the bucket' when they are all alive and hearty!" "How funny!" said Nellie, laughing. "But, what shall we get to put into the aquarium besides, Captain dear, crabs and little fish, like those we see swimming about in the sea below the castle?" "Crabs and little grandmothers!" ejaculated the Captain in great disgust. "A nice aquarium you would make of it, missy, if you hadn't some one to look after you! Why, the crabs would eat your little fish before a week was out and then turn round and eat you!" "Dear me, that would be dreadful!" cried Nellie laughing still more, the Captain did look so comical. "But, what may we have for our aquarium, if we must not have these?" "Get? Well, let me see," said he, blinking away furiously and moving his bushy eyebrows up and down for a moment, as if deliberating. "We'll have some sea-anemones, to commence with. No proper aquarium is complete without them; and, when you once see them expand, showing their red and purple hues, and watch their wonderful way of moving about, you will soon be convinced that they are really animals and not vegetables, which, as I believe I told you before, many wise people for a long time supposed them to be! You just wait, missy, and you will find this out for yourself and learn more about them, too, than I can tell you." "Oh, yes," interposed Bob. "I saw one this morning when I was swimming, and it looked just like a big dahlia." "Lucky for you it wasn't a jelly-fish, or you'd have felt it as well as seen it!" rejoined the Captain grimly--"Avast there, though, we were talking about sea-anemones and other similar fry; and I was thinking that the best place for us to go to get them would be--why, by Jove, it's the very thing!" "What's the matter now?" said Mrs Gilmour, who had been reading a letter she had just received by the post, looking up at his sudden exclamation. "Dear me, Captain, is anything wrong?"